Hmm, I mean I never do diplomacy or ask for ceasefires or alliances or things like that(I usually accept them when the AI asks me, but usually don't go and try to make them on my own or increase chances of making one with gifts and such), and sometimes have 20 or more cities and have all the enemies near one another or sometimes in between all of them, and still can't seem to get it. I always get the combining forces event, even saw Sima Yi give up his own force to become a Yellow Turban. Maybe that specific event happening is causing the coalition event from happening instead? Or are they just really rare to happen at all? I mean I really want to fight one off lol. Also I'm wondering if an AI force gets big enough if that happens against them with your force being able to join the coalition? Or is that only something that is against the player? I ask this mainly because I was playing NA: SOI, and was asked to join a coalition against a much larger force, and was wondering how they work in XI. By the way, Zyzyfer, I really do appreciate you taking the time to answer stuff and talk about this stuff in general since I know you said you don't play XI anymore.

About deaths, do you find that lower stats officers get killed more often when facing higher stat officers? Or is it just a set chance no matter what the stats are?

Valvatorez wrote:I always get the combining forces event, even saw Sima Yi give up his own force to become a Yellow Turban.

That triggers when one of the forces is down to like one city, or maybe two.

Or are they just really rare to happen at all? I mean I really want to fight one off lol.

I want to say they are rare. Because I think the conditions include the participating forces not being hostile. But it's been a long time since I've seen one trigger so I don't remember the conditions clearly...

Also I'm wondering if an AI force gets big enough if that happens against them with your force being able to join the coalition? Or is that only something that is against the player?

Yeah I don't think they put that in XI.

About deaths, do you find that lower stats officers get killed more often when facing higher stat officers? Or is it just a set chance no matter what the stats are?

Really low WAR in particular, yeah I've noticed they tend to die more in things like duels and charges. Though I do remember Lu Bu sweeping Wen Pin in a duel once and killing him in the process. That made me sad.

It's not like people are dying all over the place, though. You might get a couple dozen deaths in total. Meanwhile in XIII if deaths are on they drop like flies.

Valvatorez wrote:About deaths, do you find that lower stats officers get killed more often when facing higher stat officers? Or is it just a set chance no matter what the stats are?

Really low WAR in particular, yeah I've noticed they tend to die more in things like duels and charges. Though I do remember Lu Bu sweeping Wen Pin in a duel once and killing him in the process. That made me sad.

It's not like people are dying all over the place, though. You might get a couple dozen deaths in total. Meanwhile in XIII if deaths are on they drop like flies.

That's interesting. I always played with battle deaths on high and it seemed pretty random to me. Even Guan Yu, Sun Ce and Zan have gotten killed from charges in the same scenario. In units with multiple officers, many times the civil type officer survived but the high war guy didn't. I have no idea about how it's calculated, it's just from my own experience.Also, Cavalry General or Divine Cavalry seems to make it more likely. Xiahou Dun has killed three of my guys himself in different games.

Frequency seems very random as well. Some games maybe close to 50 some officers died in battle, others less than a dozen.

Duel deaths seem much less common. I only see a couple of those each game but quite a few get wounded.

I think it adds a little more drama and realism, but it sucks when you accidentally kill an officer you wanted to recruit eventually.

Duel deaths from what I've seen are most common when one guy sweeps the other in that very first pass. I suppose it's random with charges then, I just have seen Yang Song die in countless charges so he has kind of become the quintessential charge death in my mind.

I remember one game with deaths on, I think I had set down line traps on the battlefield around Shouchun, Yuan Shao and Liu Bei (both AI) happened to be allies and defending against somebody there. Yuan Shao lit a trap and it hit Liu Bei's unit and killed him. I thought it was hilarious.

Well, I think you're right about weaker officers probably have a better chance of going down with all things being equal. It would make much more sense that Yang Song would have a higher probability than a Lu Bu. But it just seems no one is safe, especially the ones who are always on the battlefield. Their number is going to come up sooner or later.

Interesting point you make on duels, I wish I could get more of them. They always seem to trigger for me when I'm at a disadvantage.

Yeah, the AI's love of fire seems to come back to bite them pretty often. But Liu Bei getting torched is pretty funny. I also wonder why they build those fire traps in the most remote corners that no one will ever go near. It's kind of like ship building in Cheng Du. Kind of a head scratcher

Sakae Wu wrote:Also, Cavalry General or Divine Cavalry seems to make it more likely. Xiahou Dun has killed three of my guys himself in different games.

I would think that because someone has one of those 2 skills, that makes them get a critical attack against anyone with lower War, which raises the odds of the death happening? Maybe that does increase it if you are seeing it happen from those 2 skills more in particular. I have them off mainly because I like to employ most people, and especially early on, change strategies based on who is on my force. Sometimes can go all out with attacks when having high war people, and other times have to play a bit defensively, and sometimes have to stay cooped up in one city and hope people leave me alone for a bit because I don't have anyone that can fight I mean, the midgame is usually way more active, but the start is where I think things are more interesting since it can go a few different ways. Once you get towards the end, you can pretty much just roll over everyone without any problems. I also happen to enjoy the first several years more than the last ones though.

Zyzyfer wrote:Duel deaths from what I've seen are most common when one guy sweeps the other in that very first pass. I suppose it's random with charges then, I just have seen Yang Song die in countless charges so he has kind of become the quintessential charge death in my mind.

Why would you send poor Yang Song out into battle?

Zyzyfer wrote:I remember one game with deaths on, I think I had set down line traps on the battlefield around Shouchun, Yuan Shao and Liu Bei (both AI) happened to be allies and defending against somebody there. Yuan Shao lit a trap and it hit Liu Bei's unit and killed him. I thought it was hilarious.

Somehow I doubt it would've even bothered Yuan Shao at all to have that happen, he probably would make up some excuse that he didn't mean it.

Sakae Wu wrote:Interesting point you make on duels, I wish I could get more of them. They always seem to trigger for me when I'm at a disadvantage.

Yeah, the AI's love of fire seems to come back to bite them pretty often. But Liu Bei getting torched is pretty funny. I also wonder why they build those fire traps in the most remote corners that no one will ever go near. It's kind of like ship building in Cheng Du. Kind of a head scratcher

Same problem with duels happening at bad times. As I said the other day, I saw someone building tons of traps way north of Wu Wei near the wall, but I think that may be one of the spawn points of a tribe/bandit? I think I remember seeing one pop up way up there once, so maybe the AI knows this and is protecting it? Although I don't have much faith in the AI to actually plan ahead in any way. Also, I believe that Zyzyfer builds shipyards in Cheng Du at times, to be transported later, I mean in war, there's lots of different strategies that can work that the enemies wouldn't expect, so he plans ahead

Valvatorez wrote: Although I don't have much faith in the AI to actually plan ahead in any way. Also, I believe that Zyzyfer builds shipyards in Cheng Du at times, to be transported later, I mean in war, there's lots of different strategies that can work that the enemies wouldn't expect, so he plans ahead

Oh I just was referring to a land locked AI's tendency to build fleets they'll never use or transport. Or like, do they really need 12 rams when they only have 8k spear kind of thing? Maybe I'm spending too much time trying to analyze what the AI is doing haha

Oh I knew what you meant, I was just joking that maybe the AI is planning ahead just in case, like if the tribes spawn way in the north. And in Cheng Du, maybe there will be a flood in a hundred years and everyone will need the warships, or maybe they want to go sailing in those poisonous swamps near Jian Ning, or... Ah well, even I don't think that's the case, the AI makes no sense a lot of the times.